The Performance of Seaport Clusters - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

Chapter 12 – Analyzing Strenghts and Weaknesses of Seaport Clusters 179
Table 75: Differences in assessments between ports in three regions
Variable Average
North-West
Europe
Average US
Gulf
Average
Southern
Africa
The presence of customers and suppliers 2.6 1.7** 2.5 2.4
The presence of knowledge spillovers 2.3 1.9 1.8 2.1
The diversity of the cluster population 2.3 1.8 2.0 2.1
The presence of embedded leader firms 2.0 2.1 1.9 2.0
The presence of a labor force 1.6 2.1 1.9 1.8
The presence of a culture of trust 1.4** 2.3 2.1 1.8
The quality of collective action regimes 1.6 1.4 2.5* 1.8
The presence of internal competition 0.9 2.5* 0.8 1.3
The presence of intermediaries 2.1* 0.4 0.5 1.2
The level of land prices and office rents 0.1 1.1 0.6 0.5
The presence of cluster exit barriers (immobile
staff and fixed investments)
Overall
0.1 1.4* 0.1 0.5
The level of congestion 0.2 1.1* -0.4 0.3
The presence of cluster entry barriers (access
to local knowledge, networks and capital)
Average scores on a scale from –5 (very bad) to +5 (very good)
* Significantly higher score than in other two regions
** Significantly lower score than in two other regions
-0.2 1.1* -0.5 0.0
These figures show that the USA Gulf ports (LMPC and Houston) differ from the other ports
in this study in several aspects. First, the level of internal competition is higher. Second, and
closely related, entry barriers are lower (the evaluation is more positive). These two
variables are in line with expectations: in both Gulf ports the public port authority is less
deeply involved (private land ownership, no operational involvement, less involvement in
planning) and markets work more freely.
The North-west European ports are well endowed with intermediaries. This can be explained
by the relative importance of international transport compared to domestic transport. In the
United States, domestic transport is dominant. As a consequence ports, that generally
accommodate international transport, are less important in logistics chains.
The North-west European ports are relatively ‘low trust environments’. The validity of this
research outcome is questionable, since especially trust is evaluated by the experts given